Under a DACA amnesty, American taxpayers would be left with a $26 billion bill. About one in five DACA illegal aliens, after an amnesty, would end up on food stamps, while at least one in seven would go on Medicaid. Since DACA’s inception under Obama, more than 2,100 illegal aliens have been kicked off the program after it was revealed that they were either criminals or gang members. JOHN BINDER

Trump had three cabinet slots to fill that are most important for immigration policy (several others have important, but secondary, roles, such as HHS, which handles refugees once they arrive).

The first pick was Sen. Jeff Sessions, Congress’s leading and most knowledgeable immigration skeptic, as Attorney General. Although INS was removed from the Justice Department when Homeland Security was created, DoJ is still intimately involved in the issue – it houses the immigration courts and will take the lead role in trying to rein in the renegade cities and states that are planning massive resistance to protect their segregation sanctuary laws.

Next, Trump named retired Marine Gen. John Kelly for Homeland Security. This is obviously the lead agency for immigration and Kelly, former head of the Pentagon’s Southern Command, which oversees military activity in Latin America, is a strong advocate for border security. It remains to be seen if he will devote equal focus to the non-security aspects of immigration, such as interior enforcement, visa overstays, green cards and the like. There’s no reason to think he won’t, but it’s still an open question.

Finally, there’s the Labor Department. Labor is central to the process of certifying and importing all the various categories of guestworkers that undermine the bargaining power of American workers – H1-Bs for the tech industry, H-2As for agriculture, H-2Bs for non-ag cheap-labor employers, and more. In addition, prior to the Obama administration, Labor Department inspectors were a force multiplier for immigration regarding worksite enforcement – coordinating with ICE (and before that, INS) on worksite problems the immigration people weren’t aware of.

Trump’s pick for Labor secretary is perhaps the worst person imaginable for that role: Andrew Puzder, CEO of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of fast-food chains Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, and others. He is one of the nation’s most outspoken business voices for Gang of Eight-style immigration policies. He didn’t just sign an open letter once as a favor to a friend; he’s been a high-profile champion of amnesty and huge increases in immigration and guestworkers. This op-ed in Politico, timed to coincide with the launch of the Gang of Eight effort in 2013, could have been written by Jeb Bush. Here he is at AEI in 2013 making the case for importing more low-skilled workers. Here he joins with the Bloomberg-Murdoch Billionaires for Open Borders outfit and Grover Norquist in an effort to “push 2016 presidential candidates and congressional Republican leaders to support immigration reform this year.” There’s plenty more.

Now, Trump has been waffling and contradictory on the worker side of immigration (among other things) all along – I’ve written about it here, here, and here, for instance. Nor is it the case that Trump’s simply a liberal con man – Sessions could be one of the best Attorneys General we’ve ever had, Price and DeVos are solid conservative picks, and there’s every reason to think his Supreme Court nomination will be sound.

But for the most important job that involves protecting American workers, Trump has opted for someone who thinks there are jobs Americans won’t do. Andrew “Gang of Eight” Puzder would have been a better fit for the Jeb Bush administration, though even Jeb might have blushed at the idea of appointing him. Assuming he’s actually nominated and confirmed, the Labor Department will go from being run by a post-American socialist to a post-American capitalist. So much for putting American workers first.

HEATHER MAC DONALD:

"In the Wall Street Journal weekend interview, the CEO of Carl’s

Jr., Andy Puzder, says that a “high percentage of our employees,

particularly in California, are immigrants.”

IF YOU'VE BEEN TO MEXIFORNIA, YOU KNOW THAT NOT ONE FAST FOOD PLACE HIRES ANYONE THAT IS NOT HISPANIC!ANDREW PUZDER IS AN ADVOCATE FOR OPEN BORDERS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED

"Donald Trump, as it has been mentioned, has already been breaking his campaign promises and rather than draining the swamp, he is now filling it up with hungry crocodiles," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.).

NEW YORK TIMES

Andrew Puzder Is the Wrong Choice for Labor Secretary

Working in fast-food is no picnic. The industry is infamous for grindingly low pay and labor law violations. Yet Andrew Puzder, the chief executive of the company that operates Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, has been chosen by President-elect Donald Trump as labor secretary.

Here is the record at those restaurants. When the Obama Labor Department looked at thousands of complaints involving fast-food workers, it found labor law violations in 60 percent of the investigations at Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, usually for failure to pay the minimum wage or time and a half for overtime.

Photo

People demonstrated for a higher minimum wage at a Hardee’s restaurant in St. Louis in 2013.CreditDerik Holtmann, Belleville News-Democrat, via Associated Press

The central problem for workers today is persistently low pay, even at profitable companies with highly paid executives. Mr. Puzder, however, has been adamantly opposed to a meaningful increase in the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour. Mr. Trump has said he could stomach an increase to $10, which is still abysmal. Ideally, a labor secretary, who is supposed to have a deeper understanding of this issue, would push for much more. But Mr. Puzder has said that a big raise would mean fewer jobs for workers starting out. Even if that was true, and the evidence suggests otherwise, there are millions more who would benefit from raising the minimum wage.

Mr. Puzder has also been a scathing critic of efforts by the Obama administration to update the rules for overtime-pay eligibility, which have not been fully adjusted for inflation since the mid-1970s. His argument boils down to an assertion that employees prefer a low salary and the “prestige” of a managerial title — even though they would be entitled to overtime if they remained hourly employees. His opposition to the new overtime rules is especially troubling given that it would be his task as labor secretary to defend the rules, which have been challenged in court.

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Mr. Puzder has also blamedthe Affordable Care Act for causing a “restaurant recession.” There is no evidence that health care reform has harmed job growth, and there is certainly no evidence of a restaurant recession.

Mandatory sick leave has been criticized by Mr. Puzder as well. He says it would be an undue burden on businesses. Yet in all other advanced economies, paid sick days, paid parental leave and similar policies are rightly seen as investments in human capital, as necessary as investments in plants and equipment.

For Mr. Puzder, being pro-business seems to mean being anti-worker. That makes him the wrong choice for labor secretary.

BLOG: TRUMP'S OPEN BORDERS AND

AMNESTY POLICIES WILL HELP KEEP

THE HAMBURGER INDUSTRY WELL

STOCKED WITH "CHEAP" LABOR

ILLEGALS.... The America people will then

be forced to pay the REAL cost of all that

staggeringly expensive labor

Puzder, the big restaurant mogul, is one of the most outspoken advocates for open bordersin the business community and embodies everything the grassroots rejected in the elite mindset about immigration. Throughout his career, Puzder has parroted every straw-man, non-sequitur, and downright offensive talking point on immigration that we have heard from the elites all over Washington for years. - See more at: https://www.conservativereview...

Trump Expected to Tap Labor Secretary Who Prefers Foreign Labor to American Workers

President-elect Donald J. Trump is expected to name as his Labor Secretary fast food executive Andy Puzder, who stands diametrically opposed to Trump’s signature issues on trade and immigration — which won him the election.

Puzder is the chief executive of CKE Restaurants, which includes Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s.

Advocates for American wage-

earners say that Puzder as Secretary

of Labor is alarming because he will

be in charge of enacting policies that

directly impact American workers,

whom Puzder believes are

“unwilling” to do certain jobs. Puzder

has suggested that available U.S. jobs

should instead be filled by imported

foreign labor.

Puzder has even gone so far as to suggest that he prefers foreign laborers to native-born American workers because foreign nationals are more grateful and have a better “attitude.”

“The fact is that there are jobs in this country that U.S. citizens, for whatever reason, are reluctant or unwilling to perform,” he said in a 2013 Politico op-ed in which he advocated for expansionist immigration policies.

As the Washington Postreported, Puzder suggested that flipping burgers is one such job Americans simply won’t do:

“Andrew Puzder, head of the California-based Hardee’s fast-food chain, said his business is a good fit for immigrants because they are willing to start at the bottom and work up…

“Immigrants appreciate what America offers,” Puzder said during a recent visit to Washington to lobby for immigration reform. “They are not taking jobs from Americans, because there are not sufficient Americans applying for jobs. Maybe they feel they have better options.”

Isn’t the argument for importing low-skilled immigrants that they take jobs that Americans won’t do? Farm labor is almost certainly one of those hard-to-fill jobs, but it’s news to me that working a fast-food counter is another — unless perhaps that niche becomes dominated by Mexican or Central American immigrants. A black kid from Watts is going to have a hard time getting hired at a Carl’s Jr. in South Central L.A. where all the employees speak to each other in Spanish.

Polling data suggests that Puzder’s desire to import foreign workers to fill U.S. jobs stands opposed to the desires of the American electorate.

Indeed, a 2014 poll from Kellyanne Conway’s polling company found that by nearly a 10-1 margin, Americans believe that companies should raise wages and improve working conditions for workers already here – rather than importing new foreign labor from abroad to fill American jobs.

Yet, during a 2013 AEI panel, Puzder seemed to express his preference for foreign workers over native-born Americans. Puzder said that his California labor force, which has a high percentage of foreign-born workers, is comprised of “hardworking, dedicated, creative people that really appreciate the fact that they have a job. Whereas in other parts of the country you often get people who are saying, ‘I can’t believe I have to work this job.’ With the immigrant population you always have a “Thank-God-I-have-this-job” kind of attitude, so you end up with a real different feeling. Now that’s a gross generalization… but I think it’s probably accurate.”

Last year, Puzder even joined forces with Michael Bloomberg, Bob Iger, and Rupert Murdoch’s open borders lobbying firm, the Partnership for a New American Economy, to call for “free-market solutions” to our immigration system.

“America should be a destination for hard-working immigrants from all over the world. Our economy will benefit from that,” Puzder wrote, perhaps unaware of the fact that the U.S. already has the world’s most generous immigration system– admitting one million plus foreign nationals on green cards; one million guest workers, dependents, and refugees; and half a million foreign students each and every year.

Puzder has been equally vocal about his support for immigration amnesty.

In 2013, Puzder lamented that the federal government’s current immigration policy is unfair to “undocumented workers who are lured to the country by the prospect of employment, [but] then must live in the shadows.”

Similarly, in a 2015 op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal’s open borders opinion pages, Puzder declared that “every candidate should support a path to legal status” for all illegal immigrants “willing to accept responsibility for their actions”.

In a July 2016 Wall Street Journalop-ed co-authored with Stephen Moore, Puzder insisted that the President-elect’s plan to enforce U.S. immigration law and repatriate the illegal population is “unworkable.”

“[Many undocumented immigrants] live in fear of being deported, losing what they’ve built and being separated from their families,” Puzder separately told reporters during a 2015 conference call with top GOP donors. “Our values indicate we should be the party of immigration reform.”

By “immigration reform” Puzder was referring to a widely-used progressive euphemism that means amnesty and flooding the labor market with foreign workers. Indeed, as Puzder himself explained in 2013, “comprehensive immigration reform” should include “a robust legal immigration program, including incentives for highly educated people to come to the U.S. and a guest worker program; a pathway to adjusted status for those here illegally now; and special relief for the children of undocumented immigrants.”

“The reality is that the government is not going to enforce the law effectively now against those who are here unlawfully,” Puzder wrote in 2013. The United States, Puzder reasoned, simply lacks “the will” to enforce U.S. immigration law:

There are more than 11 million illegal immigrants in our country. Many have families, homes, jobs and children who are American citizens. We simply are not going to take them from their homes, put them in prisons, load them on buses and take them back over the border. Nor will we enact draconian measures that drive them from their homes or their jobs and force them to “self-deport.” As a nation, we lack both the will and the resources to implement such policies.

More recently, Puzder has argued that “deportation should only be pursued when an illegal immigrant has committed a felony or [has] become a ‘public charge’.”

However, President-elect Trump himself explained why only enforcing some aspects of U.S. immigration law would be unfair to American workers. During his immigration speech delivered in Phoenix, Arizona, Trump said:

Immigration law doesn’t exist just for the purpose of keeping out criminals. It exists to protect all aspects of American life – the worksite, the welfare office, the education system and much else. That is why immigration limits are established in the first place. If we only enforce the laws against crime, then we have an open border to the entire world.”

In his 2016 Wall Street Journalop-ed, Puzder also described himself as a “free trader” who “oppose[s] punitive tariffs.”

Many have credited Trump’s pro-American worker stance on trade as part of the reason he was able to break through the left’s “blue wall” in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

As MSNBC’s Chris Matthews explained on election night, Trump won, in large part, due by running against the Washington establishment’s position on trade and immigration:

The fact that we don’t have an immigration system that we enforce: business wants the cheap labor, Democrats want the jobs and the votes. Nobody’s gotten it together. In terms of trade… just drive through Michigan, drive through Wisconsin, and you’ll see places that are hollowed out…Trump said, ‘You know what, I think I can run against this stuff.’ … It was a legitimate campaign on those issue.

It remains to be seen whether Puzder will abandon his former open borders positions on these issues and will take up Trump’s pro-American worker platform on trade and immigration, which won him the election.

BLOG: BUT IF HIRING AMERICAN ISN'T ANOTHER LIE, LIKE TRUMP'S LIE ON BUILDING A WALL.... WHY DOES HE WANT AN ADVOCATE FOR OPEN BORDERS AND NO LEGAL NEED APPLY MAN LIKE ANDREW PUZDER??????????

(CNSNews.com) – During his victory rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday, President-elect Donald Trump detailed his economic plan, which includes incentivizing businesses to stay in the U.S. and hire Americans.

“My administration will follow two simple rules: Buy American and hire American,” Trump said. “Remember years ago, we used to proudly display ‘Made in the USA.’ You’d go get a car, right? And you’d have it say, Made in the USA. We don’t see it. Have you seen it? I don’t see it anymore. We ought to start doing that.”

Trump said his team is “talking to a lot of companies that are thinking about leaving, and I’ll tell ya, I don’t think they’re going to be leaving so fast anymore.”

“We love our companies, and we love it when they’re employing thousands of different people, but we don’t love our companies when they leave and go to another country and think they can make their product and sell it back into our country like we’re a bunch of fools, like they’ve been getting away with for the last 35 years. Not gonna to do it,” Trump said.

Trump promised that there will be “consequences” for countries that leave the U.S.

“When they want to leave, I wish them well. I always say, ‘Enjoy your new plant, enjoy the very hot weather, but if you think you’re going to be coming through what will soon become a very, very strong border, no, not going to happen so easy,’” he said. “We’re not going to be the stupid people anymore, folks.

“We’re not going to be the stupid people, because from now on, it’s going to be America first,” Trump added.

“The American worker built this country, and now it’s time for American workers to have a government that for the first time in decades answers to them. We’re going to answer to them,” he said.

Trump promised to create “millions of really good paying jobs” and “to undertake one of the great tax reforms and simplifications in American history.”

Trump said the U.S. tax code must be simplified, because it’s “too much work” and “too complicated.”

“At the center of this plan is massive tax relief for the American middle class,” he said, adding that he plans to lower the business tax rate.

“We’re also going to lower our business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 15 percent,” Trump said, adding that he would “prime the pump” to create jobs.

Trump said there are 96 million people out there who want to work but gave up looking for jobs.

“They’re gonna have their choice of jobs now. You watch,” he said.

Trump also promised to “eliminate every single wasteful regulation that hurts our farms, our workers, and our small business.”

He also pledged to end the Environmental Protection Agency’s “intrusion.”

“We’re going to protect the family farm, and we are going to end the EPA intrusion into your lives,” Trump said.

“On energy, we will cancel the job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy, and that means lower energy prices for farmers, households, and small businesses in Iowa and frankly all over the United States. We will also pursue an agenda of conservation, protecting our beautiful natural resources for future Americans – your family, your children, and lots of other people – and we’re going to ensure clean air and clean water for all of our people,” he said.

“Regulations by the way will be cut down to a fraction of what they are now, and believe it or not, environmentally, you’ll be protected better and will have jobs, okay? We’ll have jobs,” Trump added.

“On infrastructure, I am going to ask Congress to pass legislation that produces $1 trillion of new investment in America’s crumbling infrastructure - and it is indeed crumbling. That includes major new projects for both our rural communities and our inner cities, which have also been forgotten, and we will put our people – not people from other lands – our people back to work in the process,” Trump said.

Does America Need More Hamburger-Flippers? by HEATHER MAC DONALDIn the Wall Street Journal weekend interview, the CEO of Carl’s Jr., Andy Puzder, says that a “high percentage of our employees, particularly in California, are immigrants.” Isn’t the argument for importing low-skilled immigrants that they take jobs that Americans won’t do? Farm labor is almost certainly one of those hard-to-fill jobs, but it’s news to me that working a fast-food counter is another — unless perhaps that niche becomes dominated by Mexican or Central American immigrants. A black kid from Watts is going to have a hard time getting hired at a Carl’s Jr. in South Central L.A. where all the employees speak to each other in Spanish. Puzder predicts that the high cost of Obamacare will force fast-food joints to automate their customer functions. That will be unfortunate, he says, because fast food is a “great level of job for people to

enter the labor force.” True enough. But why do we owe that opportunity to unskilled Mexicans, rather than to Americans first of all? Why isn’t it Mexico’s responsibility to figure out a way to employ their high-school drop-outs?Continuing to import large numbers of uneducated immigrants is also justified on the grounds that they will make our economy more competitive. Again, it’s hard to see how an ever-expanding pool of hamburger-flippers allows us to compete more successfully with China and Germany’s engineering sectors. Unless those immigrant fast-food employees skyrocket up the promotional ladder, they are going to be much heavier consumers of government services than higher-skilled workers, offsetting any minimal taxes that they may pay. And they are also unlikely to be starting new technology companies, as the ubiquitous Sergey Brin meme would have us believe about the entire universe of immigrants — educated and uneducated.

“He's showing more empathy for illegal aliens than he is for American citizens. Shouldn't it be the concerns of Americans he should be considering first, before the feelings of illegals? These people are taking taxpayer money and American jobs, some committing crimes, and many are not assimilating and speaking English, and Trump wants them to stay?”

"Trump is not the initiator of this class war against working people. It has been underway for decades, beginning in earnest with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and continuing under every succeeding administration, including the eight-year tenures of Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The colossal redistribution of wealth and income from the bottom to the top of American society reached record proportions under Obama, whose legacy of falling living standards and worsening economic crisis for tens of millions of workers was a decisive factor in the victory of the fascistic demagogue and con artist Trump."

"This offers cold comfort to millions of college students saddled with massive debt and workers confronting the prospect of dead-end, low-wage and part-time jobs. The economic legacy of the Obama administration has been a bonanza for Wall Street, with huge income gains for the top 1 percent and falling and stagnating wages for the vast majority. The main beneficiaries have been wealthy individuals like Chelsea Clinton herself, who is married to a hedge fund manager."

CHELSEA CLINTON DECLARES OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS FOR THE SUPER RICH MADE HER A RICH BITCH!

"This offers cold comfort to millions of college students saddled with massive debt and workers confronting the prospect of dead-end, low-wage and part-time jobs. The economic legacy of the Obama administration has been a bonanza for Wall Street, with huge income gains for the top 1 percent and falling and stagnating wages for the vast majority. The main beneficiaries have been wealthy individuals like Chelsea Clinton herself, who is married to a hedge fund manager."

TRUMP FOLDS TO LA RAZA MEX FASCIST MOVEMENT

*

Says the “WALL” will now be only “NO TRESSPASSING” signs posted every hundred miles!

“He's showing more empathy for illegal aliens than he is for American citizens. Shouldn't it be the concerns of Americans he should be considering first, before the feelings of illegals? These people are taking taxpayer money and American jobs, some committing crimes, and many are not assimilating and speaking English, and Trump wants them to stay?”

"He (Trump) is able to get a hearing because millions of people are being driven into economic insecurity and poverty while the rich and the super-rich continue to amass obscene levels of wealth. He is able with some success to divert mass discontent along reactionary nationalist and racialist channels precisely because what passes for the “left” in American politics, anchor by the Democratic Party, has moved ever further to the right, culminating in the Obama administration which has presided over endless war and an unprecedented redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top of the economic ladder."

MILLIONS OF JOBS TO ILLEGALS AND BILLIONS IN WELFARE

"More than 728,000 illegal immigrants have been shielded from being deported and

granted work permits through President Barack Obama’s 2012 executive amnesty

program, according to the Migration Policy Institute."

AMERICA THE HOME OF THE HOMELESS: OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS AT WORK!

"The decline in homeownership is one sign of the deep social crisis in the United States. As rents and housing costs have soared, spurred on by financial speculation that has enriched the ruling elites, incomes and jobs for most Americans have shriveled."

"Republicans should call for lower immigration to stop the Democrat voter recruitment. But more importantly, all Americans should call for lower immigration in order to offer a better opportunity of finding jobs for those millions of their fellow Americans of all political persuasions who would like to work."

MILLIONS OF AMERICAN JOBS HANDED OVER TO ILLEGALS ALONG WITH BILLIONS IN WELFARE.... AND THE PARTY HAS JUST BEGUN!

THE DEMOCRAT PARTY PLATFORM:

NO DAMNED LEGAL NEED APPLY!

VIVA LA RAZA FASCISM? THEN VOTE DEM!

THIS LIE IS DONE FOR!

"Republicans should call for lower immigration to stop the Democrat voter recruitment. But more importantly, all Americans should call for lower immigration in order to offer a better opportunity of finding jobs for those millions of their fellow Americans of all political persuasions who would like to work."

Let’s Stop Paying Illegals to Stay in the US: Unemployment Insurance

The United States is currently paying up to $1.6 billion a year in unemployment insurance benefits to unemployed illegal alien workers.

Why should we pay these workers to, in effect, stay in the United States even after they have lost their jobs here, jobs that were obtained only through the violation of U.S. laws?

It is a good question, and one that has been rarely asked to date — but dealing with this topic would give the Trump administration an opportunity to reduce the illegal alien population by simply stopping these payments. (We addressed the issue of several other payment schemes for illegal alien in a prior blog posting[1].)

But we could do a little more with this situation.

A person who has (1) lost his or her job; and (2) lost unemployment benefits, might consider: "Maybe I should re-think the notion of staying in the United States." That would be a rational thing to do.

Why not use this moment to facilitate the newly unemployed person's return to the homeland?

Instead of simply sending the alien a notice that unemployment benefits are not available, why not send the alien a two-pronged message, saying these are his or her options:

1. The unemployment insurance agency will not only deny benefits, it will turn over your name, address, and other data to the Department of Homeland Security for deportation.

Or

2. You can accept the Going Home package, which includes a one-way plane ticket to your homeland for you and your immediate family members, $100 in cash as you step off the plane, and $1,000 six months later to be paid, under secure conditions, at the U.S. embassy in your homeland. There would be no deportation order, but the alien would have to agree to not seek to enter the United States for 10 years.

All of this would be paid out of unemployment funds, not tax moneys. While the state entities (state employment service agencies) might object, the chances are that the new rules for illegal immigrants would save them money over the long run. The unemployment insurance system (for which I once worked in New Jersey) is covered by federal law and is managed by the federal Labor Department, but it gives states much leeway as to how the program is to be run.

The estimate of up to $1.6 billion for benefits paid to illegal aliens is of the ballpark variety. The nation spends some $32 billion a year on unemployment insurance, and about eight million of the nation's 160 million workers are illegals, or 5 percent. And 5 percent of $32 billion is $1.6 billion. The labor force estimate can be seen here[2].

How would the state employment service agencies determine who is an illegal alien and who is not? That would take a change of policy, but nothing more complicated.

After all, the E-Verify system provides a list of people who have genuine Social Security numbers issued to them, a list of people who are legally eligible for work. All the unemployment insurance staff would have to do is to run the SSNs of those applying for benefits against the E-Verify list. If there is no match to a genuine SSN issued to the worker in question, there would be no benefits. (The initially denied worker would have access to a simple administrative appeals system, in case of clerical errors, as such workers now have in the E-Verify system.)

The Obama administration did not have the will to take those simple steps. Maybe the Trump administration will see this as an enforcement opportunity.

I doubt that there would be a need for new legislation to impose such a regulation.

Mr. North, a Fellow of the Center for Immigration Studies, is an internationally recognized authority on immigration policy. His concentration is predominantly on the interaction between immigration and domestic systems, such as education and labor markets.

Progressive Caucus: Trump’s Cabinet is a ‘Collection of Stooges’

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Jared Huffman (D- Calif.) says President-Elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominations are "the greatest collection of stooges and cronies and misfits we have ever seen in a presidential administration."

Huffman made the statement during a press conference held by the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Thursday.

"With only a few exceptions, the individuals that President-Elect Trump has appointed is the greatest collection of stooges and cronies and misfits we have ever seen in a presidential administration," Huffman said.

"Some of these folks only qualifications for the job they are being appointed for is that they have attempted to dismantle and undermine and destroy the very agencies that they are now hoping to run."

The Congressional Progressive Caucus vowed to fight against most of Trump’s nominees, including Betsy DeVos to the Department of Education, Dr. Ben Carson to the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to head the Justice Department.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro said, “It is not just a responsibility, but it is a moral responsibility that we stand up and fight - and that is what the Progressive Caucus is intending to do.”

"Donald Trump, as it has been mentioned, has already been breaking his campaign promises and rather than draining the swamp, he is now filling it up with hungry crocodiles," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.).

President-elect Donald Trump intends to pick Andy Puzder, a fast-food executive, to serve as secretary of the Department of Labor, according to news reports.

Puzder is the CEO of CKE Restaurants, which is the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s. Upon receiving formal nomination from the president-elect following Trump’s inauguration, he’ll need to be confirmed by the Senate.

Puzder served as a senior policy adviser to Trump and also contributed to the real estate mogul during the campaign. He is also a former donor to The Heritage Foundation, the sister organization of The Daily Signal, having contributed in 2011 and 2014.

The restaurant executive has been the CEO of CKE Restaurants since September 2000, and over the years, he’s been vocal in opposing the Affordable Care Act and campaigns to raise the minimum wage.

The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. We’ll respect your inbox and keep you informed.

Both, he’s said in the past, negatively impact employment.

Democrats and labor unions have pushed for raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, but opponents like Puzder say such an increase will lead to higher prices and fewer jobs.

Instead, the fast-food executive told CNBC in May that a $9 an hour minimum wage would have “minimal impact” on job losses. CKE Restaurants, he said, already pays its employees an average of $11 an hour.

In addition to speaking about how raising the minimum wage could lead to a reduction in employment opportunities, Puzder has also warned that wage hikes will cause more employers to turn to automation.

In a March interview with Business Insider, the fast-food executive said that restaurants are beginning to replace workers with machines in response to minimum wage hikes implemented at the state level.

During the interview, Puzder said automation wasn’t something he was ruling out at his own restaurants.

“With government driving up the cost of labor, it’s driving down the number of jobs,” he said. “You’re going to see automation not just in airports and grocery stores, but in restaurants.”

Puzder has also advocated eliminating regulations, many of which he said have prevented businesses in the restaurant industry—which represents 10 percent of the workforce—from growing.

During a 2011 event at The Heritage Foundation, Puzder lamented how regulations stifle innovation and growth, and he said that such rules are “dampening the entrepreneurial spirit.”

“Business is presently being held back by what’s called the uncertainty factor,” Puzder said at the time. “There are always uncertainties in a business plan. You never know exactly how things are going to work out. But in the current climate, you have absolutely no idea what could happen in the next five years. It’s extremely capricious.”

According to The New York Times, he has less government experience than any labor secretary since President Ronald Reagan’s administration.

In the early 1980s, Reagan selected Raymond Donovan, a construction executive, to lead the department.

Puzder has been involved in the restaurant industry since the early 1990s, when he first met Carl Karcher, the founder of Carl’s Jr.

In 1995, he became an executive vice president and general counsel for Fidelity National Financial and then served as the CEO of the Santa Barbara Restaurant Group.

The fast-food executive began working for CKE Restaurants in 1997, when he was named the company’s executive vice president and general counsel.

Now, as CEO of CKE Restaurants, Puzder and the company oversee more than 3,750 restaurants in the United States with more than 100,000 employees.

In addition to leading CKE Restaurants, Puzder also sits on the board of directors for the International Franchise Association, a trade group representing franchise establishments.

In 2010, Puzder co-wrote the book “Job Creation: How It Really Works and Why Government Doesn’t Understand It.”

Puzder graduated with a law degree from Washington University School of Law. He lives in Franklin, Tennessee, with his wife, Dee. They have six children.

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Trump chooses
millionaire fast food executive as secretary of labor

By Shelley Connor
9 December 2016

Donald Trump has
nominated Andrew Puzder, millionaire CEO of CKE Restaurants, as Secretary of
Labor. Puzder, who runs the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. chains, is a well-known
opponent of minimum wage increases and of mandatory overtime pay for salaried
employees. As Secretary of Labor, Puzder will be positioned to advance policies
on minimum wages, wage equality, unemployment benefits and occupational safety.

Puzder has been a particularly vocal critic of raising the minimum
wage, stating that doing so would merely provide an incentive for restaurant
owners to automate service. At the same time, he has stated in multiple
interviews with business publications that he supports fully automating
restaurants. In an interview with Business Insider in March of
this year, he stated, “I want to try it. We could have a restaurant that’s
focused on all-natural products... where you order on a kiosk, you pay with a
credit or debit card, your order pops up, and you never see a person.”

He also opposes
guaranteeing overtime for poorly-paid salaried employees, such as the men and
women who manage his restaurants. Puzder’s industry relies heavily on workers
making poverty-level wages. Line cooks, cashiers and shift managers at a
Hardee’s restaurant typically make between $7.74—just above minimum wage—and
$9.00 an hour. Restaurant managers, who work more than 50 hours weekly, earn
about $36,000 yearly.

Puzder claims that
mandating overtime for managers will lead to hours and bonuses being cut. “Most
salaried employees recognize that in exchange for the opportunity, prestige and
financial benefits that come with a salaried position and a performance-based
bonus, they’re expected to have an increased sense of ownership and stay until
the job gets done, to run the business like they own it,” he wrote in a March
2016 op-ed in Forbes.

While Hardee’s and
Carl’s Jr. employees have worked for poverty-level wages, Puzder himself has
thrived. His salary is estimated at over $4 million yearly. His total earnings,
however, appear to be much higher. In 2010, he reportedly owned about $25.6
million worth of CKE Restaurants shares. That was the last year that CKE
Restaurants was a public company, and the last year that Puzder’s compensation
was reported publicly. That same year, he facilitated the sale of CKE to Apollo
Equities.

Speaking to the OC
Register in 2014, Puzder also complained that California law was too strict
about rest and meal breaks for employees. Along with California’s overtime laws
and minimum wage, he cited these requirements as a reason to halt expansion of
CKE Restaurants in the state.

Trump’s nomination of
Puzder has been criticized by trade union leaders, who had largely supported
Clinton. The nomination also comes in the midst of an ongoing battle between
the president-elect and United Steelworkers Local 1999 President Chuck Jones.
Jones has stated that Trump “lied his ass off” and misrepresented the number of
jobs that would be saved by Trump’s intervention in the Carrier’s decision to
move production to Mexico. Trump fired back via Twitter that Jones had done “a
terrible job representing workers.”

The posturing of the
unions, however, is completely hypocritical. During the elections, they
generally supported Clinton, the candidate of Wall Street who pledged to
continue the policies of the Obama administration—which has overseen the
largest transfer of wealth to the rich in US history. The unions have long
promoted the nationalist poison that Trump sold during the elections. Following
Trump’s victory, they pledged to “work with” the president-elect to implement
his nationalist economic policy.

Puzder’s nomination
is of a piece with Trump’s other cabinet choices. Betsy DeVos, an enemy of
public education, has been selected to head the Department of Education. Ben
Carson, the neurosurgeon known for his antipathy towards government
“interference” in housing regulation, has been nominated as the Housing and
Urban Development Secretary.

Steve Mnuchin, a
former Goldman-Sachs executive responsible for a pandemic of foreclosures, has
been tapped as Secretary of the Treasury. And Representative Tom Price, a
proponent of massive cuts in health care, has been selected to head the
Department of Health and Human Services.

So far, the Trump
cabinet has a combined net worth of over $14 billion. Their wealth and their
policies place them in direct conflict with the interests of the American
working class. The selection of Puzder confirms the social counter-revolution
that the new administration is preparing to implement.

At the same time,
Trump is continuing and deepening the policies of the Obama administration.
Obama allowed Wall Street to choose key members of his cabinet. He supported
bank bailouts while leaving workers to contend with underwater mortgages and
foreclosures. He spearheaded the assault on wages through the bankruptcy of the
auto companies, and his principal domestic initiative—the Affordable Care
Act—served to shift costs of health care from corporations and the state onto
individuals.